Many pads are available for sensing the presence of urine in a bedwetting detection and training system. However, none of these known pads is as simple in construction and as long lasting as that described herein. Urine-detecting pads in general operate on the principle that the urine (which is suitably electrically conductive) completes an electical circuit between two sets of sensing elements, each set being connected in series with an external alarm system. The completion of the pad circuit by the urine activates the alarm, which wakes the patient. Repeated awakenings by this process train the patient by the conditioned-reflex method.
Some urine-sensing pads in the prior art utilize thin strips of conductive ribbon or the like, as sensor elements, secured to an insulating pad. These sensor elements or strips can be laid down on the pad, either by continuous rolls of adhesive-backed metal striping onto continuous rolls of insulating flexible substrate, out of which pad-size sections are subsequently cut, or by finite-length metal strips laid onto pre-cut pad-size substrates. In any case, the more difficult and time consuming manufacturing operation concerns the subsequent steps of making a common electrical connection to the elements of each of the two sets. The invention described herein achieves this connection in a much simpler, and less expensive, manner than in any known pad. Also, by virtue of its method of construction, the present pad is more long-lasting than others.